


Sleepsong

by eriah211



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alien Planet, Established Relationship, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 15:00:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9390104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eriah211/pseuds/eriah211
Summary: A visit to another alien planet where things aren't as nice as they look at first.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title borrowed from a song by Secret Garden that also inspired this fic. First posted to Livejournal in 2014. Betaed by the wonderful fredbassett.

Parrish had just gone out of his sight for a few minutes when Lorne heard a woman singing in the distance.  
  
It was the most beautiful song Lorne had ever heard, the voice so sweet and soothing that he didn’t need to know the language to know it was a lullaby. During his missions in many foreign places he had realized that no matter the place in the world (or galaxy, as it seemed) and the language spoken there, your inner child would instinctively recognize and react to the soft voice of a woman signing a lullaby.  
  
Lorne could associate it with many different moments he had witnessed in his life: his own mother and many other mothers, holding their babies as if they were the most precious treasure in the world, caressing them until they fell asleep; and some other mothers, in places devastated by the war, still holding their babies and singing to them even though they knew they wouldn’t wake up ever again.  
  
It was probably those last terrible memories that kept Lorne alert while he followed the voice. There wasn’t any visible danger around, just a small forest next to a lake, where Parrish had been more than happy to be able to go to take samples. The local villagers had been friendly and had pointed them the way to this place, but the truth was that none of them had volunteered to guide them here.  It was easy to find, they had said, a really beautiful and peaceful place. Maybe he was just being paranoid, it was just a woman singing, but he had seen enough in the last few years to know that not everything was as harmless as it looked.  
  
Lorne walked towards the sound of the soft voice till he reached the shore of the lake. The sweet melody perfectly matched the peaceful landscape, especially now that the small twin suns were starting to set behind the mountains that surrounded the village. The dark blue surface of the lake was perfectly still and the trees that were closer to the water had grown gracefully, leaning towards the shore, green branches spreading around creating the perfect place to sit in their shade on warm days.  And there, under one of the biggest trees, he saw them.  
  
The woman was sitting on the shore, her dark hair falling around her like a curtain. Her whole attention seemed to be focused on David Parrish, who was either asleep or unconscious with his head on the woman’s lap. She was caressing his hair lovingly while she sang, as if David was her little child, and that unnerved Lorne more than many other things he had seen before. He took a step forward and something small cracked under his boot. It wasn’t a loud sound, but it was enough to catch the woman’s attention. She stopped singing and looked straight at him, but she didn’t stop caressing David.  
  
Her eyes were dark, like her hair, and her skin was pale and perfect. She seemed to be absolutely naked, only covered partially by long locks of her hair, but Lorne couldn’t care less about that fact in that moment, not when he didn’t know from where he stood if David was breathing or not. He carefully took a few more steps, trying not to alarm the woman, and he heard more cracking sounds. A quick look at the ground was enough to send shivers down his spine and make his hand grab the gun. Half-buried in the ground of the shore, bones of different sizes and shapes could be seen; some were visibly old, some others, disturbingly new.  
  
When Lorne pointed the gun at the woman, she didn’t look scared in the slightest; she kept holding David on her lap and started singing again. Lorne hesitated, no matter how much he wanted to make her get off her hands of David and make sure he was OK, shooting an unarmed woman seemed like an extreme measure, especially considering he didn’t know yet if she had anything to do with the bones.  
  
He took a few steps forward, still holding his gun, and got close enough to see that David’s hand was twitching slightly. Lorne breathed a sigh of relief, David was alive and, in fact, he looked peaceful and relaxed in the arms of the strange woman. The beautiful voice was certainly relaxing and the melody, enchanting, he thought while he lowered the gun.  
  
A soft splashing sound made him turn his gaze towards the lake. Two women were now in the water, close to the shore, with their long hair floating around them. Just as they started to sing along with the woman under the tree, another one surfaced in the middle of the lake and started swimming towards the others. All their voices together were so beautiful, Lorne thought, he could stay there listening to them forever.  
  
A loud cracking sound startled Lorne. He confusingly looked down and realized he had stepped on what looked like a big rib bone, but he didn’t remember having moved at all. Coming back to his senses he saw that he had in fact taken a few steps towards the water without even noticing.  
  
The women were still singing, but Lorne wasn’t going to let them fool him again, he pointed his gun at the sky and fired three times. The sound shocked the women in the water and they disappeared under the surface as fast as they had appeared. The woman on the shore hissed, showing sharp teeth at Lorne, but she let go of David and stood up. The skin on her legs was darker than the rest, with a light silvery sheen and her feet were wide and webbed. Lorne only had a moment to watch her, though, because as soon as he took a step forward, she jumped into the water and disappeared under the surface.  
  
Lorne kneeled beside David and shook his shoulder, trying to wake him up. David stirred and opened his eyes slowly. He seemed fairly confused, but when he recognized Lorne, he smiled widely; that honest and adorable big smile that Lorne loved so much.  
  
“I think the nap is over, David,” Lorne said smiling back.  
  
Lorne helped him to stand up and made sure he was OK before they started walking back to the village. David seemed a bit disoriented, but otherwise fine.  
  
“Nobody told you to be careful with strangers?”  Lorne asked while he helped David on their way back.  
  
“She didn’t look dangerous,” David explained, leaning on Lorne’s shoulder to steady himself. “She just looked sad and lonely…”  
  
Lorne squeezed David’s hand and turned to press a soft kiss on his lips.  
  
“Just be careful, OK?” Lorne said. “You don’t want me to be the sad and lonely one, do you?”  
  
“Never,” David answered. Then he cupped Lorne’s face with his hands and kissed him deeply.  
  
When they broke away, they kept walking towards the village as fast as they could. Lorne didn’t think the women of the lake could follow them far away from the water, but there was no way to be sure.  
  
“When we get back to the village, that people will have some explaining to do,” Lorne said grumpily. “A peaceful place, my ass!”

 

-END-


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